


Eye of a Hurricane

by LovelyLessie



Series: Have You Found Where Your Place Is? [2]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-08
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-04 15:25:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLessie/pseuds/LovelyLessie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>who could change a silly life into a screaming supernova?</p>
<p>(for leonard mccoy, joanna does - when he gets to see her.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to the lovely Ianthe for proofreading and betaing this for me!

She is seven, and brilliant, and you don't know what to do with her. After all, you weren't expecting to see her today, but she somehow got all the way across town to your apartment by herself without any notice. Now, half an hour later, she's sitting on the kitchen counter swinging her feet while you search for your comm, and you're finding it hard to feel any sense of urgency about contacting her mother when you know she'll have to go home as soon as you do.

“You're a piece of work, you know that?” you ask her, looking up from the drawer in your desk where you're digging around for the comm.

“Yep!” she agrees, beaming. “I'm one hell of a kid!”

There's an echo of her mother's voice when she says it. You laugh a little sadly, then hope she didn't catch it – but her grin falters a little, and you know she heard. You duck your head and go back to looking for your comm.

“Dad, are you mad at me?” she asks after a moment, and she suddenly sounds about three years younger.

“Nah,” you say, and cross the room to pick her up off the counter. “But don't you think your mama's worried about you?”

She opens her mouth and closes it, her eyes widening as she considers that.

“But no, I ain't mad,” you tell her, and she smiles again, relieved. “Actually,” you continue, “I'm kind of impressed.”

“Really?” she asks eagerly.

“Sure I am,” you tell her, flicking her pigtails so her curls bounce, and she laughs.

You decide maybe calling Jocelyn to get her can wait for a little bit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, much thanks to Ianthe for editing this!!

She's eight years old, and every time you look at her, it feels like she's slipping through your fingers.

Jim is sitting across the table from her playing cards with her when you come back home. When she sees you, though, she drops her hand all over the floor as she jumps up and runs across the room to hug you.

“Hi, Daddy,” she says brightly. “How was school?”

“It was fine, thanks,” you say, and throw your stuff aside before you pick her up. “ _Oof,_ you're a lot heavier than I remember.” You laugh, stepping out of your boots and collapsing in the chair with her in your lap. “When did you get so big, Jo?”

 _When you weren't looking,_ you think, and then correct yourself: _when you weren't there._

“Mom says I grew six whole inches last year,” she says earnestly, and you grin at her, ruffling her hair with one hand.

“Were you good while I was in class?” you ask sternly, and she nods, beaming.

“Mister Jim and me watched a movie, and then he made me lunch, and then we played cards,” she says. “And I won...three times!”

“Wow,” you say, and grin at Jim over her head. “You must be pretty good.”

“She sure is,” he agrees, and winks at you.

That evening, when she's in bed and you're sitting on the couch sharing a drink with Jim, you tell him how much you hate being in class while she's there. You're not one to skip classes, but it's awfully tempting to forget about your responsibilities and just spend time with her. She's not going to be there forever – a few weeks, if that – and you wish you didn't have to miss so much of it.

You don't remind him that you haven't played card games with her in over a year, or watched movies with her, or told her stories. You don't need to remind him, though.

“I wanted to be there when my little girl grew up,” you tell him without looking at him.

“I know you did,” he says, putting a hand on your shoulder. “I know.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to Ianthe for betaing!

She's ten, but she seems so much younger than that when you meet her at the edge of campus. You stagger under her weight when you pick her up, and you try to remember when you last saw her – close to two years ago, unless you count comms every once in a while.

It hits you all of a sudden that you might never have seen her again, and you catch your breath.

She's thinking of it, too, if the way she's clinging to you is any indication. You duck your head and hide your face in her hair, trying to keep yourself together for her sake. You can feel her shaking, and she doesn't make a sound, but you think she's crying.

“It's okay,” you whisper, holding her closer. “It's alright, darlin', I'm here, I'm safe. It's okay. It's-- it's--”

Your voice breaks and you fall silent.

“I was so scared,” she whispers.

“I'm okay, Joanna,” you tell her, and she nods, pressing her face into the side of your neck and digging her fingers into your shirt. You swallow and pull her against your chest. Neither of you says anything; you just hold her and let her cry into your shoulder, and if you're crying too, you're the only ones who know.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank you to Ianthe for betaing!

  She is thirteen, and you don't think she knows you were coming. She wasn't inside the house to greet you, after all, and you're pretty sure she would have been if she knew.

You find her out in the back by the pond, picking out skipping stones from the path behind her.

“Hey, Jo,” you say, sitting down next to her, and she looks up, startled. The ghost of a smile crosses her face.

“Hi, Dad,” she says, and moves closer, pressing herself up against your shoulder. She seems so much older than the last time you saw her. Her hair is shorter, her curls just framing her face, and the baby fat in her cheeks is gone, revealing cheekbones like her mother's. You smile back at her as you examine her face, wondering when she got her ears pierced and when she started wearing makeup.

“Missed you,” you tell her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

She nods her agreement and looks back at the water, turning a stone over in her hand. “Missed you, too,” she says, and tosses it. The reflections of the trees in the pond dissolve and reform as it skips once, twice – five times total before it sinks.

“Hey, that's pretty good,” you tell her. She grins, proud of herself.

In the glassy pond you can see the sky getting darker and the stars beginning to appear. “I'm learning about astronomy in school,” she says suddenly, but she won't look up at you. “Learning about the stars, and – and where they are. Not just in the sky, but--”

She waves her hand, her shoulders hunching slightly.

“It's bigger than I realized,” she says. “I mean, I guess you know that already, but I never thought so much about it before.”

“I know,” you tell her with a shaky laugh.

“Twenty-five light-years doesn't sound that big,” she says, “until you see it on a holo – until they show you how big the sun is compared to the earth, and how far away it is, and then they tell you it's only eight-and-a-half light minutes.” She bites her lip, scuffing her foot in the grass. “It's like milimeters to miles. It's huge.”

“You know, I think about you,” you tell her, changing the subject. “When I'm up there. Every day I do.”

She doesn't answer, but even in the dark you think you see her smile. You grab a stone and toss it in the air a couple times before spinning it out across the surface of the pond. It skips four times, and Joanna laughs.

“Do you like it?” she asks, looking at the surface as the ripples settle and the reflections of the stars reform. “On the Enterprise?”

“Yeah, actually,” you say. “I never thought I would, but I do.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a little late, sorry - got caught up in another project @_@
> 
> As always, thanks to Ianthe for beta-ing!

 She's seventeen, and she doesn't smile, and you wonder when your happy little girl because such a sad, solemn young woman.

“She's a teenager,” Jocelyn says. “She's just sulking.”

You remind yourself that it would be a serious betrayal of your daughter's trust to ask Jim to hack her comm. You think she's a smart girl who can be responsible for herself, and if something were really wrong she would be brave enough to ask for help, because she's always been brave. She's stubborn, too, of course, and proud like her mother, but unlike some members of her family, she takes good care of herself.

When she comes home and sees you in the kitchen, she doesn't say anything, just waves vaguely and disappears up the stairs.

“I'm tired,” she tells you when you try to talk to her. “I don't wanna talk right now.”

She turns her back, puts her headphones back on, and doesn't answer when you ask if she's okay. You remember arguments about alcohol and sleeping pills and wonder if she heard them. You pray she didn't. You pray she understands it was never really about that.

“I was the same way with my mom for a while,” Jim tells you later. “I guess on some level I was probably mad at her – for being away so much, you know?” He takes a sip of his drink. “I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't be worried necessarily, and you know her better than anyone. But she's a tough kid, and I think she knows she can trust you. She just don't want to.”

“Yeah,” you agree half-heartedly, swirling your drink in your glass, but not drinking from it.

On the day before you all go back on duty, Joanna comes over to spend the afternoon with you before you leave. You think her smile is mostly for your benefit, but when she hugs you, you're surprised by how long she holds on.

“Love you,” she says, and you think she means it. After all, you think you know the sound of a false declaration of love.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it - the last chapter of the story. Thanks so much to Ianthe for betaing everything for me and to everyone who's read it so far!!

She is twenty-two years old, and as happy as you are to see her again, you don't think you can imagine worse circumstances.

Of course, a crisis is never a good meeting time, regardless of the other context. There's no time for your surprise when she greets your party at their receiving pad and no time for you to acknowledge each other beyond a nod; if she holds your eyes for a little longer than anyone else's, it's not enough for the others to notice.

When things quiet down for a few minutes, though, she finds you in what serves as a breakroom at base. You're sipping a cup of watery replicated coffee while you read through the most recent medical reports, and you hear the door open, but you don't look up until she speaks.

“Hey, Dad,” she says quietly.

“Hey, Jo,” you reply, and set down the PADD you're studying to give her a slight smile. “Hell of a way to say hello.”

She laughs, but it's the kind of laugh that sounds like it's just to keep her from crying instead.

“Yeah,” she agrees in a voice heavy with strain. She's been in emergency mode for the better part of three days, and as much as she tries to take care of herself, the wear is starting to show.

“Coffee?” you offer.

She shakes her head. “No, but thanks,” she says, and pushes back the curls falling out of her ponytail. “If I need caffeine I've got tablets.”

“Yeah, this stuff is pretty awful,” you agree, but you still down the rest of your cup before setting it on the table.

When you look up at her, she's looking at the floor, and her teeth are worrying at her lower lip.

“I'm real proud of you for getting up here,” you tell her. “And for how well you've been handling this.”

She opens her mouth to say something, and then changes her mind. Her head moves as she swallows, and when she speaks, her voice is shaking. “I – I've missed you. A lot. But I hoped, when I got to tell you what I was doing – I hoped you would be. Proud, I mean.” She hunches her shoulders and takes a breath. “Dad, I--”

Her voice breaks and she closes her eyes to compose herself. When she opens them, you hold out your arms, and she only hesitates for a second before throwing her own around your neck and burying her face in your shoulder.

“I'm sorry,” she whispers, and you can feel her shoulders shaking. For a minute she's the ten-year-old who didn't know if her father was coming home, and the teenager who wanted to be angry instead of hurt when you couldn't be there for her, and the little girl who didn't want her dad to move out of the house where she lived.

“Me too,” you tell her, and you know no matter how tight you hold her it won't make up for fifteen years of hugs you couldn't give, and no matter what you tell her it won't make up for fifteen years of words you didn't say.

But maybe, you think, as your daughter clings to you in the few quiet moments before the storm starts up again--

Maybe you can try.


End file.
